Dave Thompson MSP

Dave Thompson SNP MSP for Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch has sought an update from the Scottish Government on the shock decision by the UK Government to end onshore wind farm subsidies a year early in 2016. He asked the Minister on Tuesday (23rd June) if the decision could indeed threaten the consented project at Glen Ullinish on Skye.

He said, “This is appalling news and frankly bad Government by Westminster. A wind farm proposal, five years in the making, at Glen Ullinish on Skye, which has massive local support, is fully consented, is now seriously threatened if anything unexpected happen in the development over the next few months. Should any of the remaining modest hurdles turn out to be more intractable than expected the project could fail.

He went on, “The Minister confirmed the guillotine could indeed impact Glen Ullinish and that the developer (Kilmac) too has written with their serious concern. He also quite pointedly said the UK decision was “perverse and irrational” and politically motivated to placate the weight of opinion in the “shires”.

He ended with, “How can this Tory Government square talk of providing a benign environment for small businesses to flourish, plan and invest over the longer term with an off the cuff decision like this. It is not hyperbole to say this decision by the UK Westminster Government is grossly incompetent.

Notes:

From the Scottish Parliament Official Record 23rd June 2015:

Dave Thompson (Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch) (SNP): Can the minister give an update on how the recent changes to onshore wind farm subsidies will affect the consented Glen Ullinish wind farm development in Skye, in my constituency—a development that has massive public support in the whole community and which will bring great benefits to Skye? Does he have any concerns about support for pumped storage?

Fergus Ewing: I have concerns about the progress of pumped storage, because the last UK Government failed to engage with us in advancing it. We have two existing facilities, but we also have one with consent in the Great Glen and another at Cruachan that have between them about 1.2GW. We believe that pumped storage should play a part—and, of course, it counteracts the stochastic nature of wind energy.

Regarding the first question that Dave Thompson asked, I have been contacted by the director of Kilmac, which is progressing the Glen Ullinish scheme. My information is that a number of local crofters were due to benefit from the lease. For the sake of transparency, I should also say that the Scottish Government might also benefit because of our interest in the land. That is one of many schemes that Mr Thompson will be aware of in the west Highlands, Argyll, Dumfries, Aberdeenshire and elsewhere.

There are many schemes in which communities have an interest but on which the guillotine has been brought down by what appears to me to be a perverse and irrational decision by the UK Government, which has been taken—if this is not an over-polite way of framing it—in the interest of placating its gentlemen from the shires. [Interruption.]

It was taken, in other words, for political reasons rather than reasons of good governance.